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Amazon Wants Authors to Be Celibate and Hates Their Mothers!

12/15/2012

4 Comments

 
Amazon has just unveiled some very bad news for us authors: they clarified their product review policy.

With regards to whether authors can review other authors they have this to say:

Authors and artists can add a unique perspective and we very much welcome their customer reviews. However, we don't allow anyone to write customer reviews as a form of promotion. If you have a direct or indirect financial interest in a product, or [are] perceived to have a close personal relationship with its author or artist, we will likely remove your review.

Can you believe this? No, I don't mean the fact they left out the word "are" from a public document. The above means that I will not be able to keep on running the "sex for reviews" scheme that has worked so well for me. Amazon wants me to be celibate! In fact I may not even be able to use romantic innuendo in order to charm fellow authors into leaving reviews for my book because that may classify as a "personal relationship." What am I going to do now?

And Amazon also gives several specific cases of customer reviews they don't allow. For example:

A customer posts a review in exchange for $5.

How am I going to earn money now? With the 400 reviews I get paid to write per month I am barely breaking even. And this is very hard work even though I barely read the books!

A seller posts negative reviews on his competitor's product.

Well, somebody's got to do it. I mean, all those illiterate readers who don't know better love the son of a bitch's book more than mine!

A product manufacturer posts a review of their own product, posing as an unbiased shopper.

And pray tell how many reviews can I leave on my book's Amazon page using my own name? Well, just one; duh! Of course I need to pose as someone other than me. And I AM unbiased: my books just happen to be great.

An artist posts a positive review on a peer's album in exchange for receiving a positive review from them.

Now I cannot trade reviews with my fellow authors! But maybe there is a silver lining. I can still send them e-mails where I write: GIVE MY BOOK A FIVE STAR REVIEW OR I WILL COME OVER AND KILL YOU! I've done it a couple of times, and it has worked. Maybe I will do this more often.

But the most egregious one of them all is:

A family member of the product creator posts a five-star customer review to help boost sales.

This is unconscionable! What does Amazon have against my mother? She writes the best five star reviews east of the Mississippi. And even though she is 80 and in ill health, she manages to keep track of all her different accounts. My mother is by any measure an admirable woman, and I deeply resent Amazon waging this senseless Jihad against adorable reviewers like her.

I am sure that if you are an author you sympathize with me, as you probably do pretty much what I do to get reviews. But what will we do now? Amazon wants us to be celibate and hates our mothers. How is my next book going to get the 60 reviews I got for my first book The Sun Zebra? Should I just write a book, put it out there, and then wait twiddling my thumbs for the reviews to come? Yeah, right!

Woe is me, despair, despair…what are we going to do?


This post was my attempt to "lighten up a little."
                                   ***
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4 Comments
Laura Novak
12/17/2012 03:28:56 am

Your humor is appreciated always. I don't know if the launch of a subsequent book will ever mirror our experience with our first books. By virtue of riding that first wave, we were also the experimenters or the explorers. And with that euphoria comes the realization that we have to watch things continue to change. It was changes in the industry that allowed us to succeed so well in the first place!

Reply
Rolando link
12/17/2012 07:28:04 am

Thanks for your comment Laura. The launch of our second book will be easier because we now have more of a network than when we started. How we will promote them best is still the vital question, and the answer is not unlike a horizon: the more you approach it the further away it gets.

Reply
Louise Sorensen link
12/18/2012 04:09:34 am

We must start our reviews with a disclaimer> I do not know the author, I'm not being paid for a review in any way.
After all, how well do we really know someone?
We can live with a spouse, for example, for many years, and still not claim to 'know' them. Except sometimes, in the Biblical sense.
But ebooks, although biblical, don't give us an insight into the author, nor do they allow us to 'know' him/her.
Therefore, a snappy disclaimer would be a good start.
I wonder how well Konrath 'knew' the authors whose books he reviewed.
Is Amazon now censoring our sex lives and decreeing the state and extent of our relatioinships?
They need a good shakeup.
The only thing that would work is the existence of another behemoth.
Amazon needs Competition.

Reply
Rolando link
12/18/2012 05:36:09 am

Amazon needs competition, but so far the competition has been plain dumb and inefficient. So in that sense Amazon deserves its slot at the top. I only wish Amazon would show some common sense when it comes to these issues. Thanks for your comment Louise.

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